Equipment Review and Discussion :: Micro filtration for HOB's.

[Chrisbarnett]

Most of you remember the thread about using womens stockings, aka pantyhose, as very fine filtration media in canister filters. Well it works so well I decided I would put it into my mom's HOB's on her 55gal. These HOB's are the Marineland Emperor 400, and a Marineland Penguin 350.

Anyway, this is what I came up with. I measured the inside of the media area then cut eggcrate to fit into the empty slot. Then carefully stretched the stockings over the eggcrate to not snag and leave holes.(If it had holes it wouldn't be as effective.) So far it is looking like it will work very well.

I only put the micro filtration in the far right side on the emperor, and the far left of the Penguin. So the center of the filters is flowing full flow, the others are just a bit reduced from the micro filtration. I set it up like this to see monitor how often they will need to be cleaned, and to watch how much flow reduction is happening. I may still put the micro media in the remaining 2 sides, but we'll see how it goes for now.

Here's what it looks like before being put into the filter.


Just thought I'd throw this out there for the turtle keepers with HOB's, but still striving for crystal water. It does an excellent job in my canister.

[untsmurf]

Looks great!!

[steve]

So does this mean more frequent cleaning/media changes?

[Chrisbarnett]

Just for the Nylon stockings. The other part of the filtration media just goes through regular cleanings every few weeks to a month. The micro media would probably need to be cleaned in about two weeks. However we'll see what happens in this next couple weeks and I'll report back. Should be interesting because hers is a 55gal tank(same size as mine) but contains a 12" fish.

In my canister filter I have the nylon stockings in use as the final water polishing stage. After about 3-4 weeks it does usually need a cleaning. At which point I just use high pressure from the hose and everything comes right out of it.

[bradmeisel]

good idea. I think i might try that when my polishing pads need to be replaced.

[PcBuilder14]

I think I'll try that! Is ther anything else you can use instead of eggcrate? Also what's the difference between mechanical filtration, and polishing pads?

[Chrisbarnett]

Yeah, you can use a bunch of things... just use your imagination and make sure it's aquarium safe.

There is no difference. Mechanical filtration is the foam and prefilter type media..

[PcBuilder14]

Oh, so basically your just adding more filtration to keep out bits and peices of gunk? But seriously how could stuff get through those thingsso easily that you need more pre-filtration?!

[Chrisbarnett]

Tons of micro fine particles get through regular foam pads... Trust me this filtration works. I'm not gonna argue with my results...

[TurtleLover_S&B]

Looks nice!!!

[Chrisbarnett]

Thank you.